Exploring Students’ Ability of ‘Doing’ Scientific Inquiry: The Case of Gifted Students in Science

초록

The purpose of this study was to explore the factors that are critical for successful scientific inquiry activity in the classroom and to analyze the students’ abilities of ‘Doing’ scientific inquiry. Two hundred and forty gifted science students in grades 7th and 8th participated in this study and demonstrated their abilities of framing questions and designing investigation through a survey questionnaire. The survey was developed for measuring factors in terms of personal and interactive variables that are needed for ‘Doing’ a successful scientific. Additionally, two other questionnaires were developed to measure students’ abilities of framing testable questions and designing the investigation in a sequence. The results were as follows: Students’ learning motivation factors as personal variable (self-confidence about group and inquiry activity, views about inquiry value) also considered as influential for students’ group inquiry activity. Other four components of interactive variable (grouping, kinds of task, physical context, and teachers’ role) were found to be influential in successful students’ ‘Doing’ group inquiry activity. In students’ evaluation of group inquiry activity, the grouping factor was the most critical one for a successful ‘Doing’ inquiry activity. Participating students showed some level of inability of in the process of framing inquiry question and designing investigation.

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